Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai,
Neihu, Taipei, Formosa September 27, 1985
(Originally in English)

A long time ago, there was a husband who loved his wife very much. They were never apart, but once his wife had to go home to see her parents. And in the middle of the night, he missed her so much that he ran after her, and went to her parents' house. It was so dark and late that the whole house was closed; the gate was closed, and the wall was very high. He couldn't get into the house, and so he went around the house. Then finally, he found a big rope.

The rope was strung from the wall, hanging down to the ground. So he held onto the rope, and climbed up to the second floor; then he saw his wife. His wife was very surprised, and said, "How did you get in here?" Her husband said to her, "I held onto the rope that you put down for me. That's how I could come in to visit you; don't you know? I thought because you knew I was coming, you had hung the rope down for me!"

She said "Oh, nonsense! I didn't know you were coming at this time!" So the husband said, "If you don't believe me, you can come down and have a look!" Then they both went down and had a look at the rope. And they saw that it was not a rope, but a big snake hanging on the wall. However, since it was dark, he hadn't noticed this, and in his blind love, it seemed that it was from his wife, but he had nearly killed himself!

So his wife said to him, "Oh, my goodness! How much you love me! But what can I give you? If only you loved God as much as you love me, with the same love, you would have found it. If you loved enlightenment so much, if you loved God so much, you would have found God and become a great saint by now! But from the love you give to me, what can you gain? Nothing!" Then the husband suddenly became 'enlightened' - his eyes were opened. With the same snake, he slid down to the ground again and ran away, never to see his wife again! After that, of course, he became a great saint and attained enlightenment.

So you see, everything else in the world is like that also: You take care of the wife, children, husband, but you don't take care of yourself. However, 'yourself' is the most important thing! What is the good of looking up to the whole family and losing your own Self?

We are not to leave our family; we are to look after our family also. But we must look after our Selves, find our Selves, who we are and what we are meant to do in this world. If you don't know this, after you die you'll have nothing.